This is a true story:

Once upon a time there was a girl. She met another girl and *instantly* found her to be the most irritating creature in the whole of the universe.

For many reasons, they kept running into each other and for different reasons they had to work together on some things. But never once did the girl ever dislike the other girl less. In fact, proximity created complete contempt.

In this real story, the girl never ever could stand the sight of the other girl. Even though she still runs into her from time to time, the girl can barely tolerate her for even a moment.

In the manga version of this story, you’d all be reading this and thinking, “Yuri.” Take a moment to consider how freakish a conclusion that is. ^_^

Stray Little Devil, Volume 3 starts with Pam and her friends all looking for rare ingredients to bring back her familiar’s voice, during which Pam is knocked unconscious. She is (of course) revived, and proceeds to “save” a lost soul, which is to say that she makes him face up to his crimes and take responsibility, ruining his life. The idea of a devil taking the high moral road amuses me.

The end of the book finds Lin-Fa confronted with a direct request to investigate Pam, and the gem she wears. Lin-Fa waffles back and forth about her feelings about this, and decides to brazen it out, her heart beating the whole time, and find Pam at her job. The idea that devils need part-time jobs befuddles me.

The crisis comes when Pam says that she considers Lin-Fa a *friend!* Oh no! A high-handed Angel can’t tolerate niceness like this from a lowly devil intern. So of course the only appropriate reaction is to slap her silly and reject her utterly. An act that will be the “sad” part of the next volume, until Pam has to save her ass or they have to work together to escape or something.

Thus we come to the end of Stray Little Devil Volume 3. I fear for all of you that Love, love, love! this series, that I will simply not feel the love. It’s okay. If you’ve got a tendency toward moe it’s probably very good. For me, not so much.

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 6
Characters – 6
Yuri – 1
Service – 4

Overall – 6

In the true version of this story, there is no Yuri, and if the girl could have slapped the other girl, possibly repeatedly, it would have been a kindness.

Some weeks ago, my parents were visiting and my Dad, as he is wont to, was going through my piles of anime and manga looking for something crappy to read. (Me, with crappy manga? How utterly likely.) So, I pulled one of the manga off the pile and said, “Here, I’m told this one is dreadful. I haven’t read it yet. You can be my sacrificial reader.” And with that I handed him Shin Megami Tensei Kahn.

Twelve pages into it he looked up and said, “I feel my brain crinkling around the edges.” Halfway into it, he gave up. I said cheerfully, “But you didn’t get to the lesbian rape part – keep reading.”. Manfully, he churned away at it and when he was done, he handed it back and said, “I think the panel on the bottom of Page 59 sums it up nicely.” I took the book, opened up to page 59 and read the bottom panel in which Nobu, with a completely slappable expression says, “It stinks.”

So, here’s the first review on Okazu ever done by my father – Shin Megami Tensei Kahn stinks. ^_^

To be fair to Dad, it really does stink. This series takes place some time after a previous series. The synopsis of the previous series is written on the first two, almost completely unreadable, pages of the book. At first I thought it was just meant to be jumbled up letters that were artsy, but after a moment I realized that those word jumbles contained actual information that was kind of crucial to understanding what had happened previously. Assuming one wants to understand.

In short – terrible things happened in the past, leaving Nobu and Yumi the sole survivors of the demonic destruction of their former school. Nobu is instantly unlikable. His expression made me root for the punks who tried to beat his ass in the very first chapter but, sadly, he’s the hero and we’ll never be rid of him. Yumi was a typical two-dimensional, uninteresting shell of a female character who mostly spends her time obsessing about Nobu. Nobu spends his time complaining that things stink.

In the second half of the volume, Yumi is trying to forget what happened and move on with her life, but sadly her life doesn’t want to be moved on with. Her questionably lesbian roommate Saeko (the traditional name for the classmate with “issues”) is first “seduced” by the “sexy” demonic teacher who vomits worms into her mouth and then Saeko tries to turn her wormy seduction onto Yumi. Amazingly, Yumi does not succumb. The volume ends with lesbianism-inducing worms all over the place and Nobu on the run, suspected of killing his mother, which he didn’t, not that we care all that much.

Ratings:

Art – 3
Characters – 3
Story – 3
Yuri – 6, but…worms
Service – 4 for the guro set

Overall – 3

As bad as this manga is, there wasn’t anything bad enough to make me want to read more. I’m with Dad on this one. Nonetheless, my sincere thanks to Bruce M. for sponsoring today’s review and opening up a whole new world of bad for me to enjoy. ^_^

Erica is on vacation this week. Please excuse her as she sets aside the important task of reviewing anime and manga to enjoy time with friends and roadside dinosaurs. Today we have guest reviewer Sean Gaffney to entertain and beguile us and make yet another series sound much better than it probably is. ^_^

Yuri is a girl who is utterly unlucky at love. She’s had 13 boyfriends, and been dumped by all of them. What’s worse, it’s always for the same reason – she gets too ‘heavy’ for them, too deeply involved and makes them want to back off. What’s a girl desperate to show her love to do?

Sounds like a typical shoujo manga, right? You’re expecting a bad boy to come along? Yup, he’s there. What about the misunderstood straight-man student council president with a crush? Present and correct. Tragic pasts up the wazoo? You have NO idea.

But it’s OK. Because Gatcha Gacha also has Motoko. Motoko is long-haired, long-limbed, and gorgeous, and many people think she has ‘Western’ looks. She’s the perfect pretty girl… till you get to know her. She’s grumpy, foul-mouthed, gets into fights constantly, and her bag is filled with the sorts of things only boys would like. There was a poll in Melody, the magazine that ran this in Japan, and Motoko was easily the most popular character, defeating the supposed heroine.

In case you’re wondering why this is an Okazu review, Motoko also likes looking at pretty girls. And seems to have no interest in guys. Now, for several volumes, that’s all there was, and I didn’t particularly regard it as a yuri series mostly as Motoko herself insisted she wasn’t a lesbian.

In later volumes, thought, we get a bit more to it. One part is a major spoiler, so I can’t get into it in this review. However, the other is a character introduced towards the end who knew Motoko in middle school. She definitely is far more yuri, and obsesses about Motoko as she seees them as being similar. As time goes on, though, she realizes that she’s just a cynic, while Motoko is an optimist who’s merely been crushed by events.

There’s nothing particularly original about Gatcha Gacha. But there’s likeable, interesting characters, a nice fast pace, and lots of amusing comedy and gripping drama. And even though it’s not original, several of the plot twists are layered and keep you guessing. The 7th volume, out from Tokyopop, ends with Yuri wondering just how important is her ‘BFF’ Motoko to her, and whether her friendship might actually be verging on a crush. And the 8th volume is the last, wrapping everything up.

Unfortunately, Tokyopop is currently going through difficulties, and Gatcha Gacha was never a very big seller. It’s currently on hiatus, with the final volume unscheduled. Despite that, I still recommend the series to all fans of shoujo manga, especially ones that feature actual strong women, which this title does.

Ratings:

Art – 6. Can get overly busy at times, especially during the action sequences, but is still well done, and makes all 4 protagonists very distinct.

Story – 7. It’s shoujo, but works its twists in well, so that even though the twist is obvious in hindsight, it can still keep you guessing.

Characters – 9. The main reason to read the manga, really. Even the ‘villains’ are fun and have depth.

Yuri: 3. Not really all that much canonically, but there’s some tease, and Motoko certainly has an eye for cute girls.

Service – 2. Motoko peeking at girl’s butts is the closest you’ll get, and it’s nowhere near as blatant as, say, Chikaru in Strawberry Panic.

Overall – 7. An excellent underrated Tokyopop series, and I hope they can get the final volume out some day.